Archive for the ‘racism’ Category

Dan Brown made a fortune devising a very elaborate tale of intrigue and conspiracy that dated all the way back to the early church. The DaVinci Code was a fun read and a blockbuster film. The tale goes that the Knights Templar held a secret that would be devastating to the church. Jesus married Mary Magdalene and had children whose descendents still live today. Leonardo DaVinci was an insider who knew this but could not just come right out and tell people. Being the genius he was, he hid the secret in codes sprinkled throughout his paintings.

Dan Brown unmasked that old myth about Jesus dying on the cross and rising from the dead. He actually married, settled down in a quiet village, raised a family and opened his carpenter shop. Okay, I made that last part up, but the story is something like that. It was a very ingenious and elaborate tale. Many people came to believe it, to lesser and greater degrees. My own son almost bought some of it because the story was told so well.

We have a new group of Dan Brown’s who have cracked a different code: the Race Code. One of the more recent code-breakers is the inimitable Maureen Dowd of the New York Times. She was able to see the code clearly when Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina yelled, “You lie,” when President Barak Obama lied about the health care plan not covering illegal aliens. What Dowd heard that others missed was the implied racist word “Boy.” What Wilson actually was saying is, “You lie, Boy.” I know nobody else heard it. It was not really verbalized, but a good code-breaker understands the latent racism behind such seemingly racially benign comments. And when Dowd speaks she is cloaked with the imprimatur of the Gray Lady herself. It is very close to speaking ex cathedra, or as close to it as secularists come. (See http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/opinion/13dowd.html.)

That opened the door for more code-breakers to speak up about what they have detected in the protests from the Right. Ignore what they are saying. It is all a racist enterprize aimed at the first black president. (Okay, he is really only half black, but all the same…)

Protesters marched on Washington last weekend–“tens of thousands” became the number to the mainstream press, others estimated it to be over a million–to protest a whole dog’s breakfast of budget-busting, extra-constitutional policies being pushed through Congress, from Health Care Reform, to cap and trade, to government takeover of industry. But all the left heard was: these people are racists who hate the president because he is black (or half-black, but we already mentioned that).

The always provocative ex-president, Jimmy Carter (who created an economy as anemic as this one) is the latest racial code-breaker to offer his incredible insight. He determined that Wilson’s comment was based on the racism that, in Carter’s view, still dominates the Southern white mentality. So, when a southern white man calls a half-black president a liar, it is a racist statement. When congressmen like Pete Stark called Bush a liar, it was just an example of robust debate and speaking truth to power.

Carter further stated that he believed “an overwhelming portion” of the protests at the tea parties and last weekend’s 9/12 Protest in Washington D.C., was tinged with racist overtones. White people just can’t accept that a black man is president.

Of course you never hear any overt racial comments coming from the president’s critics. You see, they are much smarter than to speak plainly about their true concerns. Instead they use code. Nobody is sure where and when this racist cabal got together and created the code that is universally understood by its adherents, but Dowd and Carter are now totally onto it. The jig is up! (To be clear there are no racial overtones intended in that last sentence.)

I am listening on the radio right now to Leo Terrel intone that using the term “radical” is another racist code word. He agrees with Carter “one trillion per cent.” Asked to name these racists, he says simply that they are everywhere. Asked for specifics, he finds none. It doesn’t matter. Facts are irrelevant in the face of such rampant racism. It is all in the code.

Or just perhaps the truth is to be found in one wag’s sign from the Washington event: It doesn’t matter what the sign says, you will still call it racist.

With the Coronation–er–Inauguration in full swing, both on the mall of Washington, and every square inch of every television, it seems somehow unpatriotic to speak a word of caution and moderation into the sycophantic media love-fest that everyone is caught up in. But a few things must be pretty clear by now. No man can live up to the hype or the hope this day portends. As I write, the television is on GMA and Charles Gibson is reporting that the buildings in Washington are a little brighter today and Lincoln is sitting a little taller in his chair at the Lincoln memorial. No kidding! He just said that. Such is the promise of this day to such as this totally objective “journalist.”

It is a wonderful day that the United States has shed (hopefully) the last vestiges of its long and sordid history of racism and will be led by its first black president. I said led, not ruledby Obama. (He made the unfortunate comment during the campaign that he would be ready to rule on day one. Let us hope that he simply misspoke.) He is not our new potentate. He is our new president.

Duvall Patrick noted on one of the morning shows yesterday that people said of Obama’s campaign that “hope is not a strategy.” Said Patrick, “It turns out that it is.” So, with a nod to Obama’s campaign “strategy” let me offer my hope for Obama’s presidency.

1. I hope that he remembers who he is. It became achingly clear during the campaign that Mr. Obama had a megalomaniacal streak, fueled in part by the cult of personality that grew around him. I hope he remembers that he is only a man. He is not the king. He does not possess sovereign authority. He is bound by the Constitution of the United States of America.

2. I hope he forgets some things he promised. I hope he chooses not to yank troops home from Iraq before that nation is stable enough to sustain its fledgling democracy. I hope he forgets that he planned to end the Bush tax cuts. I hope he forgets that he promised to socialize the health care industry, about 1/7 of the U. S. economy.

3. I hope he continues to surprise me with some of the decisions he has been making. Most of his early nominations have been laudable. He seems to really desire to reach across party lines and get input from others with different view points.

4. I hope, against hope, that he gets no chance to appoint any Supreme Court Justice who will most certainly reflect his pro-abortion view.

It was recently reported that about 80% of the American people now support Obama. I suspect that means that people wish him success. (Remember 55 million people voted against him.) Our country faces many major problems right now. Every American wants those problems solved. We want the economy turned around. We want the troops to come home. We want quality health care for every American. But the devil is in the details. There are socialistic answers and there are free market answers. The former have been tried and found wanting. The latter built this great nation that might just be unrecognizable 4 years hence. I hope that is not prophetic.

If you have followed my blog at all (or if you have stood within ten feet of me over the last year) you know that I am not the biggest fan of Barak Obama (to put it mildly). This election bodes many bad things for America. I will blog on those in the future. But I am a realist. Obama is the president-elect. It helps not at all to deny that truth. I am also an optimist. You might say I am a realistic optimist. I try to live by the injunction to “Rejoice always.” In the spirit of seeing things in the best light, I offer my top ten reasons to rejoice over Obama’s victory.

10. The race is over. No more political ads!

9. We may be allowed to call him by his full name now–Barak Hussein Obama, much like we could call Hillary Clinton, Hillary Rodham Clinton after her husband was elected. It will no longer be deemed impolitic to do so. I think.

8. This will help the Republican party to understand that they need to nominate a better candidate in the future. Preferably someone who can articulate a clear vision of a conservative future. Emphasis on “articulate” and “conservative.”

7. They will have to stop blaming George W. Bush for every problem found anywhere on the globe. I am afraid it will take a couple years for this to kick in. They will still accuse him of everything for a while because “he screwed things up so badly it will take much longer to clean it up.” But eventually, they will have to step up and take ownership of the problems they will inevitably create and exacerbate.

6. It will be fun watching the Democrats implode as they each jockey for position.

5. We may stop hearing the claim that America is a racist nation. Enough already!

4. No Hillary Clinton in 2012.

3. It might be fun to be the critic of the administration for the next four years. I will not feel the need to defend every decision made by the president. I will be able to look down my nose at those defenders of this administration. Will they be able to turn off the vitriolic attacks that have been part of their make-up for the last 8 years? They may need to learn a new language. It will be fun to watch.

2. We can go back to clinging to our guns and religion. Although I will have to actually go buy a gun. In times of crisis, people really do return to their faith they once deserted. This could give added energy to America’s churches. Time will tell.

1. Our first African American president. It truly is a great day when the American people have thrown off the history of racism, the legacy of slavery and the indecency of Jim Crow laws. I would certainly have preferred that the first black president to be a J. C. Watts or Michael Steele, but it truly is good that we have moved past the prejudices of the past to elect a black man as president. I saw in the eyes and body language of those black people watching Obama’s excellent acceptance speech that they felt a sense of validation and vindication. Perhaps the better word is “authentication.” Blacks have been very successful in sports, in entertainment and in local politics. But this is much bigger. A black man will now be reckoned with men like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Kennedy. African Americans now have more a sense that this is not just the White Man’s country. This is my country. That is a very good thing.